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ITF assistance in Canadian miners’ campaign
28 October 2009
The ITF has been providing assistance in a miners’ dispute in Canada over attempts to undermine pay and conditions.
The United Steelworkers’ (USW) members, employed by international nickel producer Vale and based in Sudbury and Port Colborne, Ontario, began strike action on 13 July after agreement over a labour contract could not be reached. Managers proposed an inferior contract that threatened the livelihoods of the 3,500 workers and their families. Workers from Vale’s Voisey’s Bay mine in Newfoundland joined the strike on 1 August.
The ITF helped track a shipment of Vale’s copper concentrate from Voisey’s Bay to Brunsbüttel in Germany and then on to Rönnskärsverken, Sweden; with this assistance, USW workers were able to target their protest actions in each port as the vessel, the Federal Nakagawa, arrived. The ITF also brokered a meeting in Brunsbüttel between the USW and representatives of the ship. In addition it helped the USW to make contact with unions and Vale customers in Germany and Sweden.
In a letter to ITF general secretary David Cockroft, Leo W Gerard, USW international president, expressed his gratitude to the ITF for its support. He described how assistance to reach out to unions and Vale customers had given the union “leverage” in the dispute. “It provided a big boost to our strikers’ morale,” he said.
He added: “The actions in Germany and in Sweden that ITF supported are a good demonstration of the power that unions that represent workers along the supply chain can build when they work together. This kind of joint work has been the aim of the Mining and Maritime Initiative, which USW and ICEM working with ITF and its affiliates have coordinated over the last few years.”
The miners’ dispute is still ongoing.
More information: http://www.fairdealnow.ca
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